On Fri, 31 Jan 2014 10:38:56 -0500, Stormin Mormon
wrote:

On 1/31/2014 10:10 AM, micky wrote:
Years ago, I bought a big plastic bottle of de-icer, with a 4" screw-on
cap, not plain salt but something that works a a much lower
temperature.

When I went to use it this year, it was like one big sedimentary rock
inside. I used a big screwdriver and loosed up a lot of it, but I used
that. Then I tried an elecric drill with a spade bit, and that did well
and reached pretty far into the bottle. But then I diidn't go out for
2 hours and it was all stuck together again. Have to drill it into
small bits again, and figure out how much time I have to use it before
it gets hard again. =--- The bottom looks more like the top was, that
I can separate it with a screwdriver, or a jack handle, which is longer.

Sounds like the new calcium chloride stuff. Absorbs
water from the air, and makes a mess. If you leave
it long enough, it turns into liquid slush, then
solution in the bottle. Yikk.

No, I've had that. It leaves a puddle of water in the bottom. This
isn't it. Was totally dry, at least no water could be seen.
Transparent bottle so none in the bottom either. .

I had a basement that smelled a bit. I bought 50 pounds of calcium
chloride. I put some decorative masonite vertically in a plastic
bucket. By decorative I mean a pattern was cut out of it. Put the
CaCl2 in one half and water showed up in the other half (probably in
both halves but easier to ladle or pour out from the empty side.)

It was very strange. If I put the bucket on one step, the smell went
away on that step, even though my nose was 5 feet higher than the
bucket. Then I'd move it to another step, and after 2 or 3 days, the
smell went away there, even though my nose was just as high and one
would think there is some air circulation and the air isn't glued to a
particular step.

After I did every step, the basement smelled fine and I gave the rest of
the 50 pounds to a gas station.